JURIST - Virginia

[JURIST] Virginia authorities on Tuesday executed a prisoner by electric chair [JURIST news archive], conducting the country's first execution by electrocution in over a year. Former Army counterintelligence worker Larry Bill Elliott, who was convicted of a 2001 double murder, was executed Tuesday n....... [more]

[JURIST] Former US congressman William Jefferson (D-LA) [official profile] was sentenced [press release] Friday to 13 years in prison on 11 counts of bribery and corruption. The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia [official website] found that Jefferson solicited bribes between 20....... [more]

[JURIST] Convicted DC-area sniper John Allen Muhammad [BBC profile] was executed by lethal injection Tuesday night after Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine [official website] rejected Muhammad's request for clemency and refused to suspend [press release] the execution. The US Supreme Court [official we....... [more]

[JURIST] A Virginia court on Wednesday set a November 10 execution date for John Allen Muhammad [BBC profile], who was convicted of murder in 2005 for his role in a series of DC-area sniper shootings [JURIST news archive]. Prosecutors had sought to schedule [AP report] the execution for Monday, Nove....... [more]

[JURIST] Several cases involving Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] detainees have been assigned to federal prosecutors [AP report] in Washington DC, New York, and Virginia, the Associated Press reported Monday. White House officials reportedly said that Attorney General Eric Holder [official prof....... [more]

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] issued a second set of orders Monday, granting certiorari [order list, PDF] in one additional case. On its final day of the term, the Court agreed to hear Briscoe v. Virginia [docket; cert. petition, PDF], in which it will conside....... [more]

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [official website] upheld [opinion, PDF] a Virginia law [Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-71.1] Wednesday that bans "partial birth" abortions [JURIST news archive], reversing previous rulings that found it unconstitutional. The appeals court initially aff....... [more]

[JURIST] Texas financier Allen Stanford [BBC profile] appeared Friday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia [official website], after being indicted [text, PDF; DOJ press release] on fraud and obstruction charges related to a $7 billion fraud scheme. Stanford, through his inv....... [more]

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] issued opinions in two cases on Monday. In Bobby v. Bies [Cornell LII backgrounder; JURIST report], the Court ruled [opinion, PDF] unanimously that a post-conviction hearing to determine the mental competency of a capital defendan....... [more]

[JURIST] A US military contractor who pleaded guilty [press release; JURIST report] in February to voluntary manslaughter for the 2008 shooting of an Afghan detainee was sentenced in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia [official website] Friday to five years probation and a $1....... [more]